A temple to Sugreeva

India is a land of Gods and temples and there was a period when the number of people equaled the number of Gods. But no longer. The number of Gods stands at 32 million or 33 million, while our people are much beyond a 1000 million or a billion.

Just as there are Gods, so are there temple and every village, town and city has one or two temples at the least. There are temples dedicated to Rama, Krishna, Srinivasa, Narasimha, Ganapathy, Lakshmi, Hanuman, Shiva, Parvathi and a host of other gods and goddesses.

But in the pantheon of  Gods and Goddesses, some do not have a temple, while others have only rarely.

Bangalore is fortunate that it not only has the largest number of temples in Karnataka, but it also has some of the oldest and rarest too. Where else but in Bangalore can you find the Grama devethes still dominating the urban landscape long after the city ceased to be the village that it was.

If Bangalore has one of the rare temples dedicated to Dharmaraya, it also has a temple dedicated to Sugreeva. Yes, this is perhaps one of the few temples dedicated to Sugreeva, the brother of Vali and the Vanara who led his armies to Lanka alongside Rama and Lakshmana to rescue Seeta.

The Sugreeva temple is a rarity in India and there are quite a few of them. But in Bangalore, this is the only temple dedicated to Sugreeva and as can be expected it is located in one of the petes or old areas of Bangalore.

The temple is just off the bustling Balepet Main Road. No wonder the temple is even today better known as Sugreeva Venkateshwara Temple.

A casual glance would make one assume that the idol is of Hanuman but a closer look will show you that there are two teeth protruding from the mouth and it is only this that distinguishes this idol from Hanuman.

Located on the Balepet main road, the inner shrine has a beautiful  idol of Lord Venkateshwara on a pedestal. The idol of Sugreeva, which is six feet in height, looks strikingly like Hanuman. The long teeth on either side of the mouth are the only thing which differentiates it from Hanuman.

Both Venkateshwara and Sugreeva face each other in two separate temples constructed for them. Incidentally, Venkateshwara is consecrated in the temple facing the smaller door. The locals believe that the Sugreeva idol was submerged in the Kempambudhi tank and one of the devotees got a dream asking him to lift it from the waters and place it in the temple.
Local residents say that the temple was built by Kempegowda-I for the Uppara community.
The temple is situated in such a busy area, that thousands of passers by each day continue to walk past it, ignorant of the Sugreeva Venkateshwara Temple.

Incidentally, Bangalore had another temple dedicated to Sugreeva. This was the present Sri Venugopalaswamy Temple in Shivajinagar.

This temple was constructed sometime in 1902 and it was originally dedicated to Sugreeva. Now it houses the idols of Rulmini, Krishna or Venugopala Swamy and Satyabhama, which were shifted here from Viveknagar locality.

Apart from these two temples, the Chokanatha temple in Domlur has pillars depicting Sugreeva and Vali. This is considered among the oldest temple of Bangalore and it was built by the Cholas when they ruled over Bangalore more than a thousand years ago.

The legend of the Tulasi Thotha

Bangalore is synonymous with Ramanavami concerts. The festival to celebrate Lord Rama in Bangalore turns into a symphony of music and the entire city of Bangalore transforms itself into a virtual stage for artistes to perform.

Every locality and almost every temple organises music and cultural festivals in honor of India’s best known God, whose is touted as an ideal King and whose Kingdom symbolised  an ideal State.

Ramanavami arrives in April and the onset of  summer is soothed by music that resonated for almost a month. The Ramanavami celebrations have attracted national and international attention and musicians and singers vie with each other to participate in the celebration of Rama.

The Rama Seva Mandali of Chamarajpet and the Mandalis of Seshadripuram, Shankarapuram, N.R. Colony and other areas have attined cult status. These mandalis invite a host of Carnatic, Hindustani and a few other other streams of music and art such as Harikatha, Janapada, Gamaka to exhibit their talents.

However, what many do not know is that the first public and perhaps popular rendition of Ramotsava were not held by these mandalis but by a saint-mendicant in the early years of the 20 the century.

This mendicant, who was widely popular throughout India for his devotion to Rama and his celebration of  Rama as an ideal King and a God who embodied all that is good and virtuous, first came to Bangalore in 1908 and started the Ramotsava celebrations.

The mendicant settled down at the Krishna Temple near the almost dry Dharmambudhi tank. The locality where the Krishna temple was situated was called Tuilasi Thotha. Tulasi is a Kannada word and it is the holy Basil plant and Thotha means grove or garden. There were several temples such as the Krishna Temple, the Dharmaraya Temple, the Kote Venkataramanaswamy Temple, the Venugopalaswamy Temple, Anjeneya Temple apart from the Annamma temple and since they all needed Basil leaves for regular worship, a Tulasi Thotha had come up in the area which today is occupied by Chicka Lalbagh.

The Tulasi Thotha was surrounded by several chatras or halls which provided shelter to the poor and needy and also to those who visited Bangalore for a short stay. Since the Railway Station as just a few hundred yards away, Tulasi Thotha always looked busy and it had a fairly large floating population.

The saint-mendicant whose name was Tulasi Ramadas came to Bangalore in 1908 and he settled down at the 15^th century Krishna Temple in Tulasi Thotha. A leading citizen of Bangalore then and four times president of the municipality and Mayor of Bangalore and a councilor for 36 years, Rao Bahadur Lokasevasakta B. K. Garudachar had just taken interest in developing the Prasanna Krishnaswamy Temple (Krishna Temple) at Tulasi Thotha Balepet.

Rao Bahadur was also one of the founding members of the State Bank of Mysore and he also built a free hostel in the temple premises. The sincerity and dedication of the Rao Bahadur attracted Ramadas who made the temple his home and commenced the Ramotsava celebrations.            

Though the main deity of this temple is Lord Krishna, Ramadas installed the idol of Rama and soon it came to be known as Rama Temple. The antiquity of the temple is a mystery and while some say it was built by the Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar in 1844, others say it is much older.

Ramadas saw the Krishna temple and he installed and consecrated the idol of Rama there itself on April 2, 1908 and began the Ramotsava celebrations. Since he was better known as Tulasi Ramadas, the area came to be known as Tulasi Thotha, says one legend about the name of the place. The other story is that there was a fairly big Tulasi Vana or Thotha, hence, the name.

Even today, the temple is maintained by the successors of  Rao Bahadur Garudachar who died sometime in 1948. There are a few houses in the courtyard for the people who work in the temple premises.